buzzfeed

Some people feel it’s wrong that civil service communicators are campaigning against a ‘Yes’ vote in this autumn’s referendum. Though it makes me feel a little queasy*, that’s OK, it’s UK Government policy. That’s what they’re there to communicate, exactly as Alex Aiken says:

@baragouiner civil servants are able to explain and justify the policies of the govt. The policy of the UK govt is to maintain the Union.

I’m confused about why it’s been repeated as an announcement on GOV.UK. If the audience is on Buzzfeed, and the content has been crafted to match, why force the same material into the somewhat utilitarian environment of GOV.UK?

It looks like a rare reverse example of what a wise former colleague once described as the ‘matching luggage’ fallacy of social media: that a single piece of content is signed off once and pushed out to lots of channels, often inappropriately, where it flops. A ministerial speech needs to live on GOV.UK, but makes for tedious YouTube viewing. Social media spaces and online communities are different from Government spaces, and therein lies the exciting opportunity to listen and engage, and sometimes provoke.

In our digital marketing training, we explore content strategy and introduce the concept of ‘library’ and ‘café’ content.

Library content answers questions. It’s your ‘stock’, that you build up, hone and organise to help people complete a task quickly. It has credibility, and a certain longevity, if maintained appropriately. These days, GOV.UK is the natural home for most library content in central government.

Café content is what you create to get people talking. It’s how you participate in a conversation online, tapping into the power of social media as a place where people share, react, respond and take action. It’s a fast-moving ‘flow’ to be fed with fresh stuff, and your café content has a short shelf-life of just a few hours. It’s the infographic or pithy chart, the smart batch of tweets at the right time, the Vine video that makes a sharp, memorable point, and yes, the Buzzfeed article that gets in front of the 34-year-old who rarely reads a newspaper. Your café content needs to exist in the context of a solid strategy, and often will point people to your library content where they can find out more, sign up for something, join a campaign or give you their feedback.

So, queasy or not, it’s right that civil servants are Buzzfeeding policy announcements within the bounds of propriety rules – avoiding polemical communication etc – but unwise to be doing it on GOV.UK, I’d argue. Keep the library and the cafe distinct spaces, and find out how best to make them work together.